'A square peg in a round hole'

Rockne Newell was brilliant, a loner and gun advocate who had close family ties but marched to the beat of his own drummer, according to someone who's known him all his life.

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By HOWARD FRANK

poconorecord.com

By HOWARD FRANK

Posted Aug. 17, 2013 at 12:01 AM

By HOWARD FRANK

Posted Aug. 17, 2013 at 12:01 AM

HEALING EVENT

A special West End community event in response to the Ross Township shooting will be held from 5:30-7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 19, at the West Pocono Community Library. Sponsored by Pocono Medical Cent...

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HEALING EVENT

A special West End community event in response to the Ross Township shooting will be held from 5:30-7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 19, at the West Pocono Community Library. Sponsored by Pocono Medical Center, the event will feature speakers from the community and the hospital. RSVP by Sept. 12 to events@pmchealthsystem.org.

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Rockne Newell was brilliant, a loner and gun advocate who had close family ties but marched to the beat of his own drummer, according to someone who's known him all his life.

"He seemed to be a round peg in a square hole," said Rose Schoch, who's been close to Newell since he was born.

"Rocky was born probably with special needs, both the kids (he and one of his sisters) are born that way. We all worked closely with him all his life," she said.

Newell and his two sisters moved to Florida after his parents split up and his mother remarried when he was about 6, Schoch said. His sisters, mother and Sciota-based father stayed close to him, she said.

"His mother and sister are all very well off and married to professionals. They have helped Rocky all his life. They were really close to him. He came from a very caring family," said Schoch, a former Harley-Davidson dealer who has been living in North Carolina since she sold her Snydersville business earlier this year.

Newell's family tried to help him whenever they could. Newell's mother and sisters provided him with financial support, Schoch said. His mother was the owner of a large retail business in Florida. Along the way, she married a well-to-do man who has since died.

Newell's father was close with him, too, and did what he could for him, according to Schoch.

"He's looked after Rocky here in Sciota, and Rocky could go there and wash his clothes. His father would never have let him die in the wilderness. But Rocky was a grown man. He was on his own," she said.

One of the issues Ross Township fought Newell over was the condition of his property, littered with junk he collected. But Schoch cast a different light on that.

"He was a hoarder," she said. "Most of the time this is hidden indoors. For Rocky, it was outdoors. Everything he had in his possession was like, someday he might use it. It was like people to him."

Newell attended Northampton Community College in the mid-1990s but never completed his degree, according to Schoch. But he was gifted.

"He went to school for computers and could do almost anything on them. As IQ goes, I'd say he's probably brilliant," she said.

Schoch and Newell spoke about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting shortly after it happened in December. The massacre sparked a debate over gun control and restricting large-capacity magazines.

"Rocky and I were on the opposite side of the argument," Schoch said. "He said 'Guns don't kill. People kill.'"

One of the weapons Newell used during the Ross Township rampage was a Ruger Mini-14 rifle, which comes with five- or 20-round magazines. Newell told Schoch that a person should be able to own large magazine guns.

"He was, 'You have a right to own it, but you don't have the right to use it to kill people,'" Schoch remembered from the conversation.

Schoch said Newell told her if he couldn't live on the property he was eventually evicted from, he could not live.

"What's left for me, what do I do," she heard him tell a judge during a court appearance about his property. "This is where I live. I don't have enough money to go anywhere."

Schoch said Newell's pleas were ignored.

"If only those people would have listened. We have so many people. Nobody put their arms around him and said, 'Let's find a way to make you happy and your community happy.' Even me, I don't think I could have coped with what they did in that township," she said.

"He's different than the way you and I are and probably handles life differently. It was his way of life. Not everyone has pristine properties."

Schoch never saw Newell lose his temper.

"He was calm. He was a nice guy who was backed into a corner. He was always thinking about all the things wrong in this world and, as far as I know, he sat on his computer talking with other people. His friendships were friendships through the computer. He just snapped."

She's bitter over the way Ross Township handled his property dispute.

"Somebody like (him) was in a situation where they didn't know they needed help, that they didn't need to live like this. Because people don't care for somebody else, they can start these nasty proceedings," she said.